Former President Donald Trump has dropped off the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, according to the magazine, which estimates the former president is roughly $300 million shy of making the cut.
According to Forbes’s annual ranking of the top 400 wealthiest individuals in the United States, President Trump has an estimated fortune of $2.6 billion, down over $600 million from a year ago.
The biggest factor for the decline in net worth, according to the magazine, is that President Trump’s stake in the parent company of social media platform Truth Social has declined from around $730 million to less than $100 million.
President Trump’s office buildings have also reportedly dropped in value by around $170 million.
Golf courses are a bright spot in the former president’s portfolio, with his most valuable golf property—Trump National Doral—now worth around $291 million.
But the most valuable asset in President Trump’s portfolio is a massive cash pile of around $426 million, according to Forbes estimates.
Net Worth in Focus During Trial
The release of the Forbes 400 ranking coincides with the commencement of President Trump’s civil fraud trial in Manhattan, where he faces a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, who has accused him of fraud.President Trump has described the charges as baseless and as part of a conspiracy to thwart his 2024 White House bid.
The Forbes list featured during court statements on Monday, with prosecutors making reference to a deposition in which Michael Cohen, the former president’s attorney, said he and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg were asked to inflate President Trump’s net worth.
Following a three-year investigation, Ms. James sued President Trump last September, claiming that he defrauded banks and insurers in the state of New York. She is seeking $250 million in penalties and to bar the former president and his adult sons from holding executive business posts in the state.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron issued a pretrial summary judgment on one Ms. James’ claims—that President Trump inflated his net worth by anywhere from $812 million to $2.2 billion during the years from 2011 and 2021. In the summary judgment, Judge Engoron found President Trump liable for “persistent and repeated fraud.”
The prosecutors are seeking disgorgement of the difference between the regular commercial loan rate and the favorable rates that the Trump Organization obtained based on their overvaluations. Attorneys for President Trump argued they were “undervalued,” given his brand’s value.
Also, some real estate professionals question the judge’s assessment of the value of one of President Trump’s properties—his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The judge relied on a tax assessor’s estimates, which some real estate professionals said substantially understates the actual market value of the iconic property.
President Trump’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
The former president, by far the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, maintains his innocence and has called the trial a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Presidency Didn’t Make Trump Any Richer
Historically, the U.S. presidency has served as a springboard to greater wealth, a trend that held true for the eight presidents before President Trump.In 2015, when he was campaigning for president, then-candidate Mr. Trump suggested that his enormous wealth made him immune to lobbying and that, unlike his opponents, he couldn’t be bought.
‘I’m Doing This for the Country’
In 2019, when Trump’s net worth was estimated at $3.1 billion—well over a billion dollars less than in 2016—the former president said he was unconcerned that becoming president was costing him a lot of money.“Whether I lost $2 billion, $5 billion, or less, it doesn’t make any difference,” Trump told reporters in October 2019. “I don’t care. I’m doing this for the country. I’m doing it for the people.”
“If I had it to do it again I would do it in an instant, because who cares—if you can afford it, what difference does it make?”
President Trump is the only billionaire to have served as president of the United States. Not only does this fact make him unique among prior presidents, he’s also one of the few to lose money on his presidency.
By contrast, his predecessors in the Oval Office saw their net worth climb after leaving office, in many cases due to lucrative speaking engagements.
According to a study of presidential net worth before and after taking office conducted by the American University in Washington, D.C., the eight presidents prior to Mr. Trump saw their net worth go up by between 45 percent (Ronald Reagan) and 6,150 percent (Bill Clinton). The study was done in 2017.
